Mac menu bar behaviour is inconsistent on mouse over/hover events

Question

Normally, when I hover the cursor over a menu item, for example "File"->"Open" and then lift the finger off the touchpad, the menu remains open with a cursor still on the selected item (e.g. "Open"). I can then tap/click to select it if I want to.

However, sometimes, when hovering a cursor over a menu item, and then lifting the finger, the system interprets it as a tap/click and the menu item (e.g. "Open") is automatically selected, which is not what I want. When selected item is a submenu, (e.g. "Open Recent >"), then it simply self closes after I lift a finger, which is a bit irritating, because I usually lift a finger to reposition it on a touchpad, before navigating to a sub-menu. This happens in different programs such as Chrome, Firefox, etc.

If I disable 'tap to click' in the touchpad properties, the menu behaves consistently, i.e. whenever I navigate to a menu item, it always remains open until I click. However, I would really not like to disable the 'tap to click' option.

Question: is there any way to prevent this inconsistent behaviour as it sometimes leads me accidentally selecting the wrong action, especially when I need to reposition my finger while navigating the menus.

I use MacOS Catalina 10.15.1

Answer 1

The Mac interprets tap [click] & tap-hold/click-hold differently.

If you tap & release immediately, the menu will stay open & you can navigate back & forth between menus & sub-menus as long as you wish. A second tap will then activate the selected option, or tap outside the menu structure to escape.

If you tap-hold, then the menu will only stay open as long as you hold & will activate whatever is under the cursor as you release.

This would imply that your tap action is just hanging onto the click for half a second too long to consistently achieve the first method.